"Think of the TPP as a stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny. Indeed, only two of the twenty-six chapters of this corporate Trojan horse cover traditional trade matters. The rest embody the most florid dreams of the 1 percent—grandiose new rights and privileges for corporations and permanent constraints on government regulation. They include new investor safeguards to ease job offshoring and assert control over natural resources, and severely limit the regulation of financial services, land use, food safety, natural resources, energy, tobacco, healthcare and more."

America needs more industry and long term sustainable jobs. The days of importing cheap unreliable goods while creating a few middleman jobs is gone. The idea of creating a society that relies on its service base is a bust.
Yes we must demand less government and less unproductive red tape. Harmonizing regulatory standards between trading partners is a no brainer if you want a level playing field.
We must wake up and demand more from those who are in control.
Change and growth are not good just for the sake of change, growth and profits. A reasonable standard of living, one that is healthy, happy and sustainable will suffice over the want to grow, grow, grow, faster harder...

Take Hollywood for example: Only the large studios who benefit from the large USA market has the economy of scale to spend lots of money making great movies while still turning a profit.

Should a small country, such as Ecuador for example, produce their own movies and not purchase movies (intellectual property) from the US instead to "protect their own interests"?

What ends up happening when a country practices protectionism is that their consumers end up purchasing lower-quality products OR/and at a higher price. You can see many examples of this throughout history and even in today's world; ie Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Myanmar, all communist countries in the 1970s, etc.

Yes, free trade has many benefits. Yet it can also have unintended consequences, which often depends on the conditions of the agreement.
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For example, say country A wants to protect its environment and in order to do so, places certain conditions on production processes. Implementing them costs money. If a free trade agreement does not allow to put a levy on products made in country B where no such restrictions exist, this puts country A in a difficult position. It may give up the regulations that protect the environment, or accept a competitive disadvantage. One might argue that perhaps country B has plenty of wilderness to dump the rubbish and doesn't mind the pollution, but if we are talking about greenhouse gases, that reasoning doesn't work.
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So in my view, any trade agreement must be guaranteed to allow measures designed to protect the environment.
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Same for public health. A treaty that would not allow a country to, for example, restrict tobacco sales or advertising or regulate packaging, is unacceptable. Governments have the duty to protect the health of their citizens, and must not sign away the tools to do so.
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So any trade agreement must be guaranteed to allow measures designed to protect the environment.
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Unrestricted free trade could lead to a race to the bottom, especially if countries can dump waste in our common oceans, atmosphere, rivers that flow through multiple countries, etc. In other words, if externalities are not taken into account. Or if it allows dictators to extract forced labor from the people they suppress.
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Sure, that will increase GDP growth. But GDP is flawed as a measure of well-being, and collective well-being is the objective of economics. Not GDP growth; that is a means, not an end.

It's about time some posters brushed up on (or read for the first time) the Law of Competitive Advantage.

In economics, the law of comparative advantage refers to the ability of a party to produce a particular good or service at a lower marginal and opportunity cost over another. Even if one country is more efficient in the production of all goods (absolute advantage in all goods) than the other, both countries will still gain by trading with each other, as long as they have different relative efficiencies.

For example, if, using machinery, a worker in one country can produce both shoes and shirts at 6 per hour, and a worker in a country with less machinery can produce either 2 shoes or 4 shirts in an hour, each country can gain from trade because their internal trade-offs between shoes and shirts are different. The less-efficient country has a comparative advantage in shirts, so it finds it more efficient to produce shirts and trade them to the more-efficient country for shoes. Without trade, its opportunity cost per shoe was 2 shirts; by trading, its cost per shoe can reduce to as low as 1 shirt depending on how much trade occurs (since the more-efficient country has a 1:1 trade-off). The more-efficient country has a comparative advantage in shoes, so it can gain in efficiency by moving some workers from shirt-production to shoe-production and trading some shoes for shirts. Without trade, its cost to make a shirt was 1 shoe; by trading, its cost per shirt can go as low as 1/2 shoe depending on how much trade occurs.

A country should produce those goods and services which it produces most efficiently in its home market. Trying to produce everything and sheltering industries is a recipe for long term disaster.

The absence of external competition invariably breeds complacency and eventually higher costs.

Country A has a population of 300 million. Country B has population of 5 million. Companies exist in both countries and make exact same product X.

Country A cost per production due to economies of scale to build product X is .05 cents. Country B has comparative advantage to make product X, but its economy of scale is less thus build at .07 cents.

Free trade (in truest form) removes barrier. Companies now compete against each other. Even though Country B has a natural comparative advantage it cannot compete with the enormous quantities that country A companies can produce.

Or let us look at another way free trade can go wrong. Assume country A and country B are equal to each other in every possible way for two similar companies, except one. Regulation. Country A has added regulation that Country B does not. This regulation adds to the cost of production, making country A's companies at a cost disadvantage versus country B.

let us assume Country A has state owned companies that get super cheap interest rates that companies in country B do not get...

or how about we consider cost of living and thus wage rates that vary between countries?

I could give three or more easier examples, but it would be easier if you bother to read an economic book beyond the chapter on Law of Competitive Advantage.

if the If the two countries are very equal then yes, what you say makes perfect sense. The problem is things are far more complicated than the simple law of competitive advantage.

Now there may be much validity because many societies/regions/institutions may only have the resources and skills and focus/calories to be competitive in a few sectors or areas of endeavors.

But there were some huge exceptions, like the US, Britain, Germany, Japan, possibly South Korea and now China, where a country or region gets heavily involved in a wide of industries.

As for this point: "The absence of external competition invariably breeds complacency and eventually higher costs"

Depends on the internal market. That wasn't the case for the US from 1861 through World War II. It became more of the case in the 1970s though. So is something valid if it takes 100 years plus to manifest?

Now with Argentina and even Czarist Russia, your point was quickly supported by developments outside of food processing (with the former) or extraction industries and the military (for the latter).

The principle's application is not limited to international trade but rather to any trade. Ie if you buy food at the grocery store rather than grow it yourself, visit a doctor for your medical needs rather than learn the medicine yourself, etc., then you are practicing comparative advantage.

None of the examples you provide actually reduce the efficiency gains produced by comparative advantage.

Perhaps you believe that some of the examples is "free trade gone wrong" for various non-economic or non-mathematical reasons, but none of the examples you provide actually contradicts with the law of comparative advantage, which again, is explained entirely by math and nothing else.

I am sorry, but I respectfully disagree. I don't believe how comparative advantage manifests in different countries, regions, sectors or other circumstances has been explained fully.

"How does that advantage first come about?" was asked by Ha Joon Chang (I believe, in some form). I don't think a clear answer has been provided.

And I doubt it has been mathematically determined say like linear programming for logistics.

And home spun analogies don't work when it comes to international trade and economic development, particularly with developmental states, neomercantilism and protectionism, because governments and societies are amenable at times to getting the prices wrong, and driving change regardless of what economists think is best.

After reading through that example, you can see that the math is actually very simple and just purely math (which inherently is not ambiguous at all). If you are interested in further learning about this subject, I suggest reading any entry college-level economics textbook.

For the math itself, how comparative advantage manifests (difference in natural resources, difference in cost of labor, regulation, etc) is irrelevant.

What Ha Joon Chang and other economists have questioned are macro-economics that go beyond the simple mathematical calculation of comparative advantage.

To make the last post a bit more clear:
Comparative advantage is a MICROeconomic law that is explained purely by math. This concept is explained very well in every entry level economics textbook that I have come across, and as well as in the link that I provided above.
What Ha Joon Chang and other economists have questioned are MACROeconomic principles that go beyond micro-economic math. Macroeconomics usually cannot be proven by math, because the world is just so complicated and there are too many variables, unknowns, etc. to take account for.

"Even if one country is more efficient in the production of all goods (absolute advantage in all goods) than the other, both countries will still gain by trading with each other, as long as they have different relative efficiencies."

I didn't hear debt mentioned as part of the theory. How about if one country borrows money to finance consumption, and gradually loses the ability to produce anything useful, while another country ends of with a bunch of IOUs of dubious value after years of government policies that discouraged imports and encouraged exports?

"The online market is another bugbear: it is often easier for Europeans to buy things online from America than from their neighbours."

The problem is that most e-commerce sites in Europe operate only in their local language and are not localized to english (except the UK ones ;) ) and/or to other european languages.

Add to this a bunch of separate currencies (again, not localized in most cases), pretty expensive shipping rates (comparable to rates of shipping from US to Europe), plus the obligatory VAT and you have a nice combination...

Nevertheless, some e-commerce businesses all over Europe are waking up and localize their sites to many languages and currencies.

Now, if the shipping rates would be brought down that's for sure would give a nice boost to intra-EU cross-border e-commerce...

"The problem is that most e-commerce sites in Europe operate only in their local language and are not localized to english (except the UK ones ;) ) and/or to other european languages."

If this is true, it puts European e-commerce sites at a great disadvantage from Amazon, the giant.

I reviewed the various Amazon foreign sites and they are all localized to the language of the country. I, personally, have ordered items from Amazon Japan, for delivery in Japan and U.S., and from Amazon Germany, for delivery to U.S. No problem. Automatic currency calculation and reasonable delivery costs.

I looked at quelle.com, the web site of one of the major catalog mail order suppliers in Germany. Only German. If your competitors are invading your territory, and you are not invading theirs, you may be in for some unpleasant business surprises.

In contrast, Rakuten, a major e-retailer in Japan has an English site. (rakuten.com/en)

Perhaps we can increase GDP for a while by streamlining trade, reduce barriers and become more efficient. But at the end someone has to buy the product. At some point, in the near future, we are over our heads in debt and then what do we do? Does no economist out there realize that we need to start living within our means? If not today, then tomorrow. Running out of credit capacity is the equivalent to clearing out the piggy bank. You have to stop buying, period. And your GDP goes all to hell. Better to do this slowly by cutting down the debt to the point where you again dip into the piggy bank one day. If you do not, be prepared for a thumping collapse.

Why don't you present both sides of the story, what about the devastating impact free trade has on certain segments of the economy....one reason why China or India do not have a huge consumer base (despite the size of their population) is because they produce "cheaper goods" at low wages...

Free trade is just like anything else in the world: it has good sides and it has bad sides. Unfortunately the article completely ignores the negative sides.

One negative effect is that free trade can completely destroy sections of the economy. Another is that although it may bring long term benefits this goes at the cost of significant restructuring. If that restructuring is mishandled you end up as a country that doesn't have competitive advantages left and that as a consequence must adapt itself to the wage level of its new competitors (like China).

Unfortunately the free trade ayatollahs completely ignore this aspect. They also ignore the fact that for most businesses stability is a very important factor and that changing trade relations are a major element of instability.

Ricardo lived in a world where the government had a minor role and competitive advantages based on skills could be considered as accidental.

Nowadays industrial infrastructure (suppliers) and knowledge among the population are major factors in competitiveness and governments play a major role in building and maintaining that competitiveness.

So, the citizens of every country covered by the agreement benefit from cheaper imports. Thus, every country covered must be producing cheaper exports. How? By reducing cost of production, ie wages. Which, in turn reduces buying power. Sorry, where is the net benefit to the population?
In New Zealand, we are looking at the added "benefit" from the TPP of not being able to legislate to protect our environment, for fear of lawsuits to protect corporate profits.
These agreements are for corporations, not people.

The cliché elephant in the room is inadequate for how discussions avoid the question of problems associated with ever-declining non-renewable resources. Of course (as anyone who understands the implications of Economic History and Economic Geography realises) growth has raised living standards, and can continue to do this for the immediate future, but --- ?
We have a herd of rampaging elephants rampaging un-noticed through our rose (tinted) garden while we’re concentrating on trying to improve the pleasurable scents that endangered garden’s remaining roses can supply.

Within a couple of decades, solar power will be so cheap & abundant as to entirely replace most fossil fuels - even with only inefficient forms of storage.

(At under $0.80 per watt capacity, and falling 20% annually, we can expect solar to cost less than a cent per watt capacity, plus installation/ wiring cost. So, don't worry about us exhausting fossil fuels - alternatives will be cheaper than today's energy long before we get close.)

Besides, what does that have to do with the fantastic potential gains from removing trade barriers?

Declining non-renewable resources? Not on earth - we dig stuff up, make stuff with it, and bury. Nothing precludes us from digging it up again and reprocessing it if the price is right (or the labour & capital costs of reprocessing become sufficiently low).

There are no non-renewable resources, except for oil, gas & coal. These are resources we have in super-abundance (we have another 38 years of proven oil at present extraction rates; that has risen rapidly in recent years and we know that we will discover far more; we know there is abundant gas & shale gas; we know there is more than 400 years worth of coal at today's extraction rates). We have too many fossil fuels, and will need government action to reduce our consumption of them.

Not to worry though - solar voltaic has been falling in price by more than 20% annually for over three decades. It now costs less than $0.80 per watt capacity. If that trend continues (and there's so much ongoing innovation in labs as well as manufacturing that it probably will), solar will cost less than a cent per watt of capacity by 2032 (sorry, meant to say "in 20 years" in the above comment).

That means renewable energy so cheap when the sun's shining, we can use even the most inefficient energy storage and it will still be cheaper than fossil fuels are today.

We are not using up non-renewable resources much; and within three decades, there's no obvious reason why we should be using any non-renewable resources at all.

Plant and animal biology has prospered in far higher CO2 concentrations than humanity would create in a century of today's industrial activity - and will do so again if necessary. And, if human beings were to die out, even if we shift the climate, it would take less than ten million years before all the structures we have ever built and almost all evidence of our existence has decayed beyond recognition & vanished, and entire new animal species & vegetation has grown on the land we now occupy. Don't worry too much about us destroying animal diversity - life was here before us and will continue after us, in its own rich diversity. Evolution is more than competent (in just a few million years) to replace almost anything we destroy.

So stop scaremongering.

We aren't destroying the planet. Indeed, human health stands to benefit as we stop burning fossil fuels over the next couple of decades. Long term, as populations collapse and as farming productivity improves, we'll be free to return ever more land to nature too.

None of this defrays the urgency with which we should be pursuing and attaining genuine and deep free trade between all developed countries. The US, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea really need some kind of joint, multilateral & democratically accountable government structure, which elevates regulatory standards far above the national level, and allows for genuine, deep and complete free trade throughout.

Failing that, region-to-region free trade agreements should urgently be passed, and should run as deep as politically possible (and still deeper).

Bureaucrats need to get the fuck out of the way of businesses and entrepreneurs trying to add value and create prosperity in the world - the formal existence of territorial borders is no justification for arbitrary incursions, waste, distortions, pettiness, underperformance & needless human suffering.

Shaun, a more apt opening for you might have been wrong back at you? Sorry to shock you, but we’ve been replacing renewable with non-renewable resources (you really should read Economic History and Economic Geography?) for centuries. Your description of fossil fuels being, “in super-abundance” is a black joke? Ditto your comment re having, “too many fossil fuels”.
You remind me of a Queensland Premier who, like you, used to say, “Now don’t you worry about that.” He promised us cars would run for virtually nothing on water, and we’d have a cancer cure made from lantana.
You assume, “farming productivity improves”; but apparently don’t realise its reliance on fertiliser, once supplied by renewable guano, on non-renewable artificial fertilisers, provides another problem. Add the problems which will arise when we can’t run tractors on non-renewable cheap hydrocarbon fuels, and that naïve assumption bites the dust even more quickly.
In many ways you sound like the well-meaning World Federalist movement did, before reality hit home and their support dissipated; and I’m sure that, like them, your intentions are honourable.

Farming productivity relies on fertiliser (which requires affordable energy), that isn't all there is to it. There is enormous potential to improve productivity, just by raising standards of farm management to best practice (control of salinity, acidity, moisture, correct timing of harvest, correct crop selection, correct distribution of seed, correct distribution of fertilisers to manage soil minerals, etc). Logistics of getting to market are important too. We can easily quintuple global farm productivity just by moving to best standards - what that requires is more integration of global markets (removing tariff barriers; removing subsidies; building port facilities & rail lines), more commercialisation of farming (less subsistence land; fewer family farms) and higher incomes in poor countries (i.e. more urbanisation).

Solar energy is not quite yet viable without subsidy - depending on how installation costs move, it will become extremely competitive over the next couple of decades (unless the trend of progress in the past decade stalls dramatically - which is possible, but probably not likely).

Shaun, of course fertiliser (as you say) “isn't all there is to it.” Raising productivity, however, isn’t as easy as your facile proposals suggest. They do little more than tinker around the edges.
Those involved in agricultural science and economics would be amused to hear, “We can easily quintuple global farm productivity”.
As for your odd final assertion that, “The world isn't ending”, I’ve been aware that it is since junior primary school; but quite apart from your comment being wrong, even if it were correct, it’s still interesting to ponder why you’d feel it relevant?

Those involved in agricultural science and economics know that most land under cultivation is not productively managed - there is a wide distribution globally, with only a small fraction of total land actually putting modern methods, capital, feedstocks, data collection, information services and logistics to full use. Bringing the average closer to the frontier would easily quintuple global yields - that's not really up for dispute (only "easily" is subjective here - and it's intended in relative terms).

Why is that relevant? Generally, environmentalists worry about loss of habitat, loss of species and that a peak human population near 10 billion will place too much strain on wildlife. Sometimes loss of biodiversity is framed in terms of the destruction of a non-renewable resource. Perhaps. In Europe and North America, rising farm productivity mean that ever more land is returned to nature, and most endangered species enjoy growing populations. That is a feat which will certainly be repeated in developing countries as their incomes grow - affluent urban people are attracted to romantic notions of nature, and are capable to pay and legislate for conservation.

That seemed to be where you were coming from - hence the rebuttal.

All the evidence is that renewable electricity & derivatives will be far less scarce for consumers in the decades to come; in no meaningful sense are we really depleting any non-renewable resource. Biodiversity (in developing countries) is probably the only exception - and even there a trend reversal can be expected in most countries by around mid-century.

shaun39, I accept:
1.That you believe the right methods, “would easily quintuple global yields”; but which relevant significant university faculty agrees with you?
2.That you believe “In Europe and North America, rising farm productivity mean that ever more land is returned to nature, and most endangered species enjoy growing populations.” In reality it resulted from the affluent and articulate Chattering Classes persuading governments it pays to buy their support.
3. That you believe this “will certainly be repeated in developing countries as their incomes grow”; but it’s interesting you subconsciously accept the tokenism involved when you say “affluent urban people are attracted to romantic notions of nature, and are capable to pay and legislate for conservation.”
4. That you believe the material you raise in point 3 above is relevant to how “easy” it is to quintuple food production; but if you still can’t see it’s irrelevant, helping you becomes quite a challenge. You might perhaps start with non sequiturs?
Should you decide to accept the mission of developing your analytical skills, I wish you well.

what in the capitalist system supports income of labor, particularly in a situation of labor surplus? Labor income is what supports consumer markets.

Part of the reason for surplus of labor is that the western economic model is resource intensive and thus not easily transferable to large populations. Technological transformation is needed, but it may or may not happen. What may happen instead is denial of access to majority by producing Global Brazil. Technological transformation is desirable, Global Brazil is not. How to induce the former and avoid the latter is the question.

"Free Trade" policies of today amount in the end to new opportunities to depress wages of labor. These take us to Global Brazil. We need new ideas, not re-warmed old ones.

Free trade means that some uncompetitive industries would die (so some workers would lose), but also that more productive (and internationally competitive) industries would expand, achieving higher productivity domestically and earning foreign currency.

Technologies are generally embedded in the capital equipment that firms use, or in the ability of firms to outsource certain parts of production to the best locations (supporting higher value added in other parts of the production or service chain). Markets that are less open to world trade will always have large parts of their economy which are less productive then world leaders.

There are certainly many potential reforms in Brazil which would raise productivity & promote adoption of more modern capital equipment & technologies without more openness to trade:
- make it easy, instant & free to register businesses
- deregulate & liberalise utilities & services, etc so that businesses can network quickly & start trading faster
- simplify labour law so that legal employment is not prohibitive or excessively risky; simplify law in general; make the courts work much faster & with greater reliability
- move almost all government communications & transactions entirely online
- fix the tax system; either eliminate corporation & withholding tax, or add an equivalent level of taxation to consumer & mortgage lending (for efficient capital allocation, business investment shouldn't be discriminated against by the tax system viz-a-viz houses & credit cards); ensure sensible marginal rates; eliminate most deductions; actually enforce taxation far more effectively
etc

But Brazil also stands to benefit enormously from free trade (Brazil's exporters would love access to cheaper capital equipment, for instance; if consumers did buy many cheap or high-quality foreign goods, Real depreciation would provide great support for rapid growth in manufacturing & service exports). Global trade offers higher productivity & incomes, and far less poverty.

Quite why the general public is so easily rallied behind the protectionist cause, I'm not really sure. It's probably similar to the lump sum of labour fallacy, or export fetishism. Protectionism just appeals to intuition.

But "spending is bad" is too simple. Rather than sit at home trying to hammer together a computer, sometimes it's more efficient (and supports higher living standards) to buy a computer from the experts and sell something back in return (holidays, pop music, football lessons, soy, beef, timber, jet engines, planes, trucks, robots, CAD drawings, marketing services, whatever). With things like insurance policies, international trade makes even more sense (purely domestic companies might not have the risk diversification to pay out for severe natural disasters).

If you're not convinced, imagine a town built on a river, with only one bridge crossing. Tell me why the people would suddenly be richer with government officials setting up a check point on the bridge, controlling what can and can't cross, and charging high tariffs for taking things across.

Fine, they don't have the skills (probably because they didn't see any use in developing such skills, when higher incomes were to be had from protectionist rent seeking).

Open the borders, and they will learn whatever skills they find most useful for competing in an open market. With ability to sell to several billion consumers, they will certainly find themselves capable of something (or at least, the vast majority of people will).

* or alternatively, build a more progressive tax system in which the poorest people are compensated where they fail to compete (or are supported in education and acquisition of skills).

After all, there is an unambiguous net gain of wealth for Brazil if it pursues free trade. Perhaps the socially responsible (and politically necessary) compromise would be to provide some level of government transfer to the poorest among those disadvantaged by opening to free trade.

Brazil should nonetheless pursue incremental but sustained progress towards full trade liberalisation, if it wishes to become a developed country.

re: "* or alternatively, build a more progressive tax system in which the poorest people are compensated where they fail to compete (or are supported in education and acquisition of skills)."

Second part: Yes.
First part: perpetuates the situation for the poorest. NO!

"Social Responsibility" opens the door for anything and everything to be provided to anyone who can convince enough voters to vote to supply it. Robbing Peter to pay Paul always gets Paul's support in the voting booth.

Support the poor to get education and develop skills works, actually, for the betterment of all (except the losers who'll see the newly-successful folks as competitors, of course!)...

Shaun, there are very few even moderately educated people who’d follow your quaint line. It’s best you don’t hope that you’ll ever become a Latter Day Pied Piper; and you certainly remain an extremely unlikely choice to address meetings on any of your favourite fantasies.

Sean, not everyone has the ability to master certain skills. Some can never learn to spell, analyse arguments, and much more. For most of the unskilled there didn’t tend to be because “higher incomes were to be had from protectionist rent seeking”.
Please (for the sake of the lecturers if nothing else) don’t ever consider enrolling in economics --- or any other demanding field.

depressing wages by offshoring labor is not rising productivity. To the contrary. In many ways the productivity of the world rises more slowly. Rather than invest in innovation to decrease cost of production, which does eliminate some low skilled labor but at least creates high skilled jobs needed for automation, you simply increase your profit by depressing wages of labor, in essence forcing people somewhere in the world to work for food.

If you want examples,look at Apple. Apple products are made by people in China who are essentially working for food. Saying that someone spends majority of their income on food and "basic shelter" is a polite way of saying that they are working for food. Apple maximizes its nominal profit margins by selling its product at a high price into "developed" markets where a big part of high prices paid is obtained through issuance of fraudulent debt. This is where we are at today. The issuance of fraudulent debt slowed dramatically because you can no longer pretend that this debt is repayable. Fraudulent private debt has been assumed by governments as equally unpayable public debt. As a result, when the next crisis comes, there will be nobody to "save the financial system" because even governments have no credibility left.

Reflexive defense of "free trade" ought to confront the reality. It also ought to confront the basic math. The basic math says two things: (1) aggregate wages - aggregate savings = aggregate demand. (2) To bring the entire world to current US oil consumption world production would have to at least double, more likely triple, even assuming efficiencies. What do (1) and (2) mean? (1) means that forcing labor wages down undermines market economy. This should be self-evident now. (2) means that current philosophy of globalization is simultaneously destabilizing the whole world. Poorer countries are creating vast pools of proletariat that can not be easily lifted out of working for food, but expects to be. "Advanced" economies become polarized and destabilized internally due to financial crisis.

I do not pretend to know what the best course is. But I do know this: reflexive calls for "free trade" as a cure for everything are about as credible as perpetual calls for lower taxes to bring prosperity to all. It has been thirty years to test both, and perhaps the time has come for some humility?

Fatman 51, the problem (throwing more and more non-renewable resources onto our insatiable bonfires) helps us enjoy the experience, but is relatively easy to understand --- for most. As you imply, however, knowing what to do about it is a horse of a different colour.
That’s one reason these ‘debates’ tend to become a tad confused.

Wouldn't the barrier on the bridge ... restricting and charging for crossing .... be true only if the cost of resources, labor etc were equal on both sides of the river?
'Protectionism' sounds good but doesn't really describe all the aspects of what is occurring.